Violations of journalists' rights in Chechnya - April 2003Monitoring press violations and conflicts connected to media coverage of events in the Chechen Republic in April 2003 Compiled by the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations. Translated by Prague Watchdog.
April 4
The radio station Ekho Moskvy aired an interview with an independent Polish journalist Kristina Kurczab-Redlich, who just returned from Chechnya. She said that no truthful information about events ever appear on Russian television; propaganda is all that is broadcast. She pointed out that no journalist in Chechnya was able to freely move around and use cameras, even television ones, without a special permit. Referring to the recent referendum in Chechnya, she stated that "it is impossible to hold a plebiscite in a place where there are no opposing campaigns.” On the day of the referendum, Kurczab-Redlich recalled that she and 130 other foreign journalists witnessed that the streets of Grozny and other cities “were totally empty.”
April 7
Two terrorist acts took place on this day near the Chechen Press Ministry. In the morning an “Ural” army truck was bombed; fortunately no one was injured. But another explosion took place that afternoon; again near the ministry building, and this time five policemen were killed.
April 8 – 18
Members of the Industry Committee, which includes directors of the Russian media, met in Moscow to sign an “Anti-Terrorist Convention”. This document is essentially a code of conduct for the mass media in the event of terrorist acts and counter-terrorist operations; it states that saving people’s lives and protecting their right to live must take priority over any other rights and freedoms.
The agreement further states that in the event any information is received about a planned or evolving terrorist act, journalists must first advise their bosses about it who, in turn, are obliged to immediately pass this information on to the proper officials in charge of these operations. The document forbids any media personnel to act on their own initiative either in interviewing terrorists after a terrorist act (unless officially permitted), allowing terrorists to appear on live broadcasts without first consulting with an official, or to take on the role of mediator (unless officially requested to do so).
Among the signatories of this document were CEOs of the Pervy kanal television channel (ORTV) Konstantin Ernst, of Rossiya television Anton Zlatopolskiy, president of Mediasoyuz Aleksandr Lyubimov, managing editor of radio station Ekho Moskvy Aleksey Venediktov, of the Interfax news agency Dmitriy Voskoboynikov and others.
On April 18, many regional journalists signed the Convention, including 20 Chechen editors and correspondents of regional and municipal newspapers of the Chechen republic, all of whom travelled specifically to Rostov-on-Don to sign the document. They proclaimed their readiness to cooperate in establishing a free and independent press in Chechnya. In addition, journalists from Rostov-on-Don, Voronezh, Novosibirsk, and Yekaterinburg also signed.
April 8
Ukrainian journalist Taras Protsyuk, 35, who worked for the Reuters agency, was killed in Baghdad when an American tank shelled the hotel Palestine where hundreds of foreign journalists lived and worked. Protsyuk had previously worked in Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, and Chechnya.
April 9
The central command of the North Caucasus Joint Troops Group reported they discovered an underground printing press run by rebels in the Shaami-Yurt settlement of the Achkhoi-Martan district of Chechnya. According to the military, separatist leaders used the press to publish the Voice of Jihad and Voice of Ichkeria newspapers. The printing equipment was destroyed, and further measures are being taken to find other such printing facilities in Chechnya.
April 9
A photography exhibit on Chechnya opened in Copenhagen. The exhibit presents works of Russian army journalists who have been working in Chechnya for the past several years.
April 11
During “St. Petersburg Dialogue” forum on the media’s role in the new Russian-German relations, German journalists appealed to President Vladimir Putin to “Open up Chechnya to Us.” Aleksey Venediktov, managing editor of "Ekho Moskvy" stated that “journalists are not soldiers in this conflict, and the Russian and German leaders must be made aware of this.” According to him, “this is imperative because of the Iraqi war, during which journalists lost twelve of their colleagues.”
April 12
A rally was held in Grozny in support of the antiwar event held in Moscow. The 100 participants were mostly women whose children had disappeared after being arrested by Russian soldiers. One of the women lashed out at a female journalist who wanted to take some pictures of the event, shouting, “Put down that camera! It is your fault that they are killing us!” Other people intervened, which helped defuse the situation; the journalist expressed understanding for what had happened, saying she’d been working in Chechnya for a year now and often encountered similar incidents. The woman responsible for the outburst later apologized to the journalist.
April 14 – 17
The French newspaper "Le Monde" published an article claiming the Moscow-backed Chechen government prepared a report containing “evidence of the dreadful violence that reigns throughout the Northern Caucasus.” The article states that “the thirty-page document presents the first attempt at carrying out an official assessment of crimes committed against civilians in Chechnya. The section entitled ‘Reports of killings in Chechnya from January 1, 2002 to December 31, 2002’ officially lists 1,134 civilians killed in that year alone.’ On average, 109 Chechens are killed every month, and that’s not counting casualties from armed clashes or explosions.”
According to Le Monde, there are two pages entitled “Reports of mass graves of civilians in the Chechen Republic, compiled by the Chechen Emergencies Ministry,” and contain a list of 49 settlements. Similar data was presented by the international organization Human Rights Watch at a press conference in Moscow.
The head of the Moscow-backed Chechen administration, Akhmad Kadyrov, announced that the foreign media reports on mass executions of innocent Chechens do not correspond to reality. Speaking about the reference in "Le Monde", Kadyrov said: “I haven’t heard about any such document being prepared by my administration, nor have I given any instructions to prepare it. Therefore, the figures reported in that paper are clearly exaggerated and the facts questionable.” The Chechen prosecutor’s office announced that the reports in the French paper “do not agree with the actual figures.”
On April 17 the Deputy Attorney General of Russia, Sergey Fridinskiy, denied reports that several thousand innocent citizens were killed in Chechnya last year. “Prosecutors registered 720 killings for the entire year, including pre-meditated murders and deaths from terrorist acts. As you can see, these figures do not tally with the three thousand killings reported by the western media.” But he did admit that law-enforcement agencies do not always manage to locate the people who have disappeared. However, he assured journalists that prosecutors respond to every reported case of kidnapping.
April 14
Today was the tenth anniversary of the murder of journalist Dmitri Krikoryants in Grozny. The 33-year-old reporter, who worked for the human rights newsmagazine “Ekspress-Khronika”, was killed in his apartment by unknown assailants, who shot him several times and slit his throat before disappearing. Krikoryants’s colleagues suggested the motive might have been related to his investigation into the murder of Dzhokhar Dudayev’s aide in London; however, the weekly "Ekspress-Khronika" stated it was for political reasons. In any event, this was the first murder of a journalist in Chechnya a year and a half before the war.
April 15
A four-day seminar on current problems of regional journalism in Chechnya and Ingushetia began in Rostov-on-Don. The director of the Russian Press, TV Broadcasting and Media Ministry's branch in the Southern Federal District, Tatyana Seledtsova, reported that 20 journalists from the two republics took part. Problems of inter-regional journalism were discussed, as well as establishing a unified information area in the Southern Federal Region. She said: “The past ten years have seen the Chechen and Ingush journalists drift apart from the Southern Federal Region media, as well as the entire country.”
There were practically no editors-in-chief among the seminar participants; young journalists whose press experience was less than five years represented Chechen and Ingush media. A survey was carried out among the participants, which included questions about the information situation in Chechnya. According to the responses, improving media qualifications in the republic is the first measure needed. Ignatov, head of the Civil Service Academy, pledged that the Press Ministry of Chechnya would grant privileges when student enrolment was being decided.
April 17 - May 4
The Ambassador of Lithuania to the Russian Federation, Rimantas Sidlauskas, announced that the Chechen information site "Kavkaz-center"in Lithuania would not be shut down. “Lithuania is a democratic country, we cannot chase away or shut down anyone just like that,” the ambassador stressed. He said that the news site, consisting of two people, does not exercise any influence and does not “do politics.” Had it not been for the Russian media, who continuously go on and on about the news site, everybody would have forgotten about it.” Several days later the Chechen separatists’ site was transferred from Lithuania to Estonia.
In connection to this event, the Russian presidential aide Sergey Yastrzhembskiy, announced on April 24 that countries having mutually beneficial relations with Russia should recognize Russia’s categorical disapproval of supporting information sources of Chechen separatists. He added that Russia, via diplomatic channels, tries to influence those countries that supports the sources “who conceal terrorism and separatism of Chechen leaders.”
The Kavkaz-center’s editorial team announced on April 25 that an Estonian provider was now handling their site. The sole reason for changing providers was due to the Kavkaz-center’s financial problems.
On April 28 the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs voiced expectations that Estonian officials would take necessary measures to terminate the activities of the Kavkaz-center. He also expressed satisfaction that Lithuanian officials came to the conclusion that allowing the site to exist “does not increase Lithuania’s international authority, and obstructs development of Russian-Lithuanian relations.” The Ministry announced that Russia expects that “Estonian officials, who have repeatedly declared their readiness to aid in the campaign against international terrorism, would adopt measures necessary for terminating similar activities in their country.” The Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs responded that Tallinn received no diplomatic note from Russia regarding the disputed web site.
On April 29 the Prime Minister of Estonia, Juhas Parts, announced that the government did not intend to interfere with the activities of the Kavkaz-center, now handled by AS Starman Internet, an Estonian server, despite Russia’s request to shut it down. Henri Treude, marketing director of AS Starman confirmed that the Internet site www.kavkazcenter.com did, indeed, use a server leased through their company.
On April 30 the Kavkaz-center web site terminated its activity in Estonia. Henri Treude announced that the “contract was cancelled and the site has been shut down.” The company’s representative said that the web’s closure happened only after their “commercial client” cancelled the server contract. However, another Chechen Internet source explained that Kavkaz-Center was shut down because the Estonian server was unprepared for the high volume of traffic on the site. They received tens of thousands of online visits daily, which led to a service failure.
On May 2 the speaker of the Estonian parliament Ene Ergma, refuted the accusations that the site had been shut down on her instructions. Meanwhile, the Kavkaz-center resumed operations using a server that was probably located in England; they published a statement on their web accusing Estonian security police of forcibly terminating their site. In a letter to the Estonian Parliament, they claimed the police apparently acted on direct orders from the Prime Minister and Chairman of the Estonian Parliament. On Thursday (May 1), the security police commissioner of Estonia, Henno Kuurmann, also denied these accusations.
On May 4, Kavkaz-centr announced that an American web provider notified the editorial board about its intention to disconnect their site from the Internet. Appended to the notice was a written complaint by someone claiming to be a U.S. citizen, and accused Kavkaz-centr of violating U.S. laws, including contacts with “Al-Qaeda.” Kavkaz-centr refuted all accusations, and insists on the contract being honored and the provider to present specific facts regarding the purported U.S. law violations rather than stating unsubstantiated accusations.
April 19
Chechen State Radio marked its 75th anniversary by hosting a roundtable on “Topical journalism issues in Chechnya” with prominent Chechen journalists taking part. The head of the Moscow-backed administration of the Chechen Republic, Akhmad Kadyrov, and the republic's Prime Minister Anatoli Popov were also invited. During the session it was stated that this radio station has been operating since November 2001 and broadcasts nearly 3 hours daily on the “Rossiya” channel. Its director Akhmed Dobletukayev said they feature programs such as “A Farmer’s Life” and "A Youth channel", and up-to-date news is broadcast twice daily.
April 23
The Russian daily "Nezavisimaya Gazeta" published an article by Oleg Panfilov, director of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, entitled “Absorbed by pacifism, the Russian press has totally forgotten about the Chechen war.“
Regarding the media’s reaction to the Iraqi war, Panfilov stated that 704 Russian newspapers ran nearly 4,000 articles on the events in Iraq; yet items about Chechnya only totaled 1,423. The word “aggression” was mentioned in 606 articles on Iraq, and “occupation” in 60; the same words appeared in the papers about Chechnya, but only in 76 and 9 articles respectively.
The director of the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations pointed out that while the Russian press describes the Iraqi war as occupation, for Chechnya it becomes a fight against terrorism. Panfilov believes “this is the tragedy of Russian journalism, when professionalism is relegated to writing only such material that the politicians want in order to create an appropriate mood for the people.”
April 23
Nationwide paper "Daymokhk" (The Motherland), published in the Chechen language, celebrated its 80th anniversary with a reception in which the country’s leaders and journalists took part. To celebrate this event, they issued a two-color spread in one edition and a booklet detailing the paper’s history. At present "Daymokhk" is published twice a week with a circulation of 20,000.
April 28 – May 5
Under the headline “Who’s Left Alive” the "Novaya gazeta" carried an article by Anna Politkovskaya in which she said that Khanpash Terkibayev, correspondent for the "Rossijskaya gazeta" newspaper, was part of Movsar Barayev's terrorist group that stormed the Dubrovka theatre on October 26, 2002. Referring to an interview Politkovskaya had with Terkibayev, she said he made it possible for the terrorists to get into the Moscow theatre, although left before the Russian special forces attacked. She described him as being “the man who secured the terrorist act from the inside and was sent there as an intelligence agent.”
Terkibayev told the news agencies that he was in no way connected with the siege of the Dubrovka theatre. “I wasn’t there that night and in no way was I involved in any terrorist act.” He insists that Politkovskaya presented her own version of that night that has nothing to do with reality. “I told her that I’ve known Movsar Barayev since childhood as we came from the same village, but that I’ve had no contact with him for many years; and all the rest she simply fabricated.”
Various Chechen separatist sources cite Terkibayev as a Russian agent; yet do admit that he had earlier worked in Aslan Maskhadov's TV channel. Politkovskaya wrote that officials had no reaction to the article that stated the siege of the theatre had been conducted by Russian intelligence. “Law enforcement agencies remain silent and act as if it doesn’t concern them,” she explained. “Our paper wanted to ask the Prosecutor General about Terbikayev’s role in the terrorist act and his subsequent rise in the Russian Federation, but he refused to respond.”
April 29
The deputy minister of the Russian Press Ministry, Mikhail Seslavinski, said that about 70 percent of Chechnya is covered by federal TV broadcasting. At a session of the ministerial board, he said that Chechens can only watch the "Perviy kanal" television, the “Rossiya” channel and sometimes the “Culture” channel. But “Radio Rossiya”, “Mayak” and “Yunost-MK” are available.
Chechen TV and Radio broadcasts two to three hours each day, both in Russian and Chechen. Seslavinski also said that 18 newspapers and three magazines have been registered in Chechnya, eleven of which are funded by the state. In March, over 12,000 newspaper issues, and 20,000 magazines were published. According to Seslavinski, this proves that the Chechen Republic is becoming part of Russia's unified information area.
The ministerial board has asked the Russian TV and radio network to look into the possibility of launching broadcasts in the mountainous regions of Chechnya. In line with the federal agenda, full television and radio coverage should be available by 2006. Seslavinski explained that complications in the mountainous terrain prevent an earlier launching. By June 1, the Press Ministry will consider licensing all TV and radio broadcasts in Chechnya; and in May, the first open tender for TV and radio frequencies in Grozny will take place.
The Press Ministry’s deputy Vladimir Kozlov stated that 115 million rubles have been set aside this year to revive the TV, radio and press in Chechnya. According to him, a powerful TV and radio channel operates in the republic and work has been going on to install antennas. The Chechen government has provided space in the center of Grozny for a radio and television center to be built there. Kozlov also said that 0.7 million rubles were provided last year to equip the press center of the staff in charge of the counter-terrorist operations in Northern Caucasus. That same year the Russian Press Ministry provided several million rubles to the “Chechnya Svobodnaya” radio channel and its Internet web site. Kozlov said that printing equipment was installed at the request of the Chechen government.
Bislan Khaladov, chairman of the Chechen State Television and Radio Company, told the "Kommersant" newspaper that 30 percent of Chechen territory is not covered by TV signals; therefore, the media should focus on counter-terrorist propaganda because it’s in this part of Chechnya that guerrillas operate most successfully. He added that there are more than 30 independent TV stations that operate in various villages in Chechnya, most of which act as the “guerrillas’ mouthpiece.”
April 29
Talking with the "Rossiyskaya gazeta" newspaper about the planned agreement between the federal center and Chechnya, the vice-chairman of Russia's Federation Council, Aleksandr Torshin, said the document should include development of the local media market and independence for social organizations.
Compiled by Ilya Maksakov. Based on material from the Center for Journalism in Extreme Situations, CJES expert on Chechnya and Ingushetia Tamerlan Aliyev; news agencies Interfax, ITAR-TASS, RIA Novosti, Prima; newpapers: Kommersant, Obshchaya Gazeta, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Komsomolskaya Pravda, Novaya Gazeta; radio stations: Echo Moskvy and Svoboda; and Internet publications Strana.ru, Regiony.ru, Chechenpress, and Kavkazski Vestnik.
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